Ad blockers are one of the best ways to help secure your privacy online, reduce clutter on websites, and avoid spyware-infected ads. Although it’s certainly possible to find a paid ad blocking software, there’s no reason to spend money on one. Most of the best ad blockers are completely free to use. This list of the best free ad blockers includes a mixture of highly-effective tools for Chrome, Firefox, and more.
The best free ad blockers of 2019
From our research, the best free adblockers of 2019 are:
- Stands Fair Adblocker
- Opera Browser
- AdLock
- AdBlock Plus
- uBlock Plus Adblocker
- Poper Blocker
- Trustnav Adblocker
- Adblocker Ultimate
- NoScript
- AdGuard (no longer always free)
Ad blockers are the obvious solution to removing unwanted ads on the web. Paid ad blockers are typically the best option if you want something that works the best, but many free ad blockers might just get the job done for you.
Below, you’ll find our detailed overview of the best free ad blockers available. No ad blocker is perfect, however, so you’ll find you may need to try out multiple options to find the right fit.
Note: If all you’re looking to do is get rid of annoying pop-up advertisements, check out our guide on the best popup ad blockers.
Types of ads and ranking methods
Not only are there multiple types of advertisements you might run into, there are multiple ways to block advertisements. Ultimately, how an ad-blocker goes about blocking ads does not matter so much as long as it doesn’t impede your ability to effectively browse the web and doesn’t invade your privacy. Additionally, a good ad blocker will block most types of ads.
When researching the best free ad blockers, we looked for the following criteria
- Always free, without a paywall for important features
- Good user ratings
- Do not require an account to use services
- Recently updated (within the past 12 months)
- Readily available as a plugin for at least one browser or operating system
- Blocks “display ads” (floating, pop-up, banner, video, static image, wallpaper, text ads)
- Blocks streaming video ads (such as on YouTube)
We initially also tested for prestitial and interstitial ads (those that load a screen before your content and often include a countdown). However, since Google launched its built-in ad blocker to Chrome and began punishing sites in Google searches for unfavorable ad practices, most reputable sites have reduced or eliminated this style of advertisement, making them difficult to find for effective testing. We only mention these where available, but did not include them in rating considerations.
Particularly, our test used a few select sites with various ad types to test. Those included Forbes.com, Fark.com, YouTube, and OrlandoSentinel.com. In the case of Orlando Sentinel, we found that that website utilizes fairly aggressive advertisements that most ad blockers struggle to block. In fact, only a few ad blockers on our list effectively blocked all ads on Orlando Sentinel.
The free ad blockers listed below did not need to meet all of the criteria to make the list, but as many as possible. We scored each free ad blocker based on those criteria and assigned a score based on effectiveness. Additionally, with the exception of the Stands Fair Adblocker, all of the adblockers listed below are open source software.
See also: How to stop your internet provider tracking your activity
Best Ad Blockers- Browser plugins and apps
Your best ad blocking option is to install a browser plugin or utilize a web browser that already has a built-in blocker. Browser plugins or built-in ad blockers can interact with the websites you’re using much more accurately than a standalone program operating on your computer in the background.
Stands Fair AdBlocker
This Chrome-only ad blocker is a low-impact plugin that does exactly what it’s intended to do. You can block all types of ads using this plugin, with the most obvious limitation being that it’s only available as a Chrome addon. The Stands Fair AdBlocker is not designed for wholesale ad blocking, although you can use it for that. The company believes in fair advertising and encourages users to whitelist certain ads from different sites.
Thankfully, Stands lives up to its promise of blocking ads. That included the more aggressive advertisements found on Orlando Sentinel, as well as other display ads, autoplay video ads, and ads on YouTube.
Score: 7/7
Best features: Block ads on Facebook and search ads on Google.
Works with: Chrome
Opera Browser
If you’re looking for an all-inclusive ad blocking experience without the hassle of plugins, the Opera browser is an excellent source. Opera is one of the fastest and most well-built browsers around and was among the first web browsers to have a built-in ad blocker.
Opera’s ad blocker also works well. After turning it on in the settings, you’ll find it blocks almost every ad you come across. The only exception I found was that it failed to block the interstitial ads common on Forbes (the quote ad that often pops up before reading an article). Most of the other ad blockers we tested did block that ad from Forbes. That said, Opera blocks every other ad type that we tested, including those on Orlando Sentinel.
Score: 7/7
Best feature: Built into web browser, easy whitelisting
Works with: Chrome
AdLock
AdLock is the newest entry on our list, but its effectiveness rocketed it right to the top of our recommended options. Far from being just a browser plugin, AdLock also offers Windows and Android tools that help block ads across your apps. It even has a parental tool in the works that we’ll be interested to test out once available. As a free browser plugin on Chrome, we found AdLock to be an extremely powerful and aggressive tool in all the right ways.
AdLock is designed to get rid of all forms of ads, and with but one exception, cleared away all of the ads that we tested across a variety of sites. The only website that managed force through AdLock’s filter was on the Orlando Sentinel website. We found that that site tripped up almost every other ad blocking tool on our list, as well, so it wasn’t a huge knock against AdLock’s service. In this case, AdLock blocked every other ad on the pages we tested, including ads on YouTube, autoplay video ads, and pop-up ads, to name a few.
By default, the tool is designed to block every possible type of ad you might encounter. You can easily whitelist a site by clicking on “Settings” and then “Whitelist”. You’ll also be able to toggle a few additional filter settings in there if you so choose. Chances are, though, that you’ll likely want to leave those alone.
AdLock is one to watch and earns high marks based on our criteria. Its paid tools might be worth considering, but with no free trial to test them out, we recommend sticking with the free options for Chrome, Windows and Android Chrome for now.
Score: 6.5/7
Best features: Spyware filter
Works with: Chrome (free), Windows (free and paid), Android (free and paid)
Adblock Plus
With over 10 million downloads on the Chrome browser alone, Adblock Plus is the most popular ad blocking software around. A free and open source project from the eye/o. Adblock Plus is the primary source code for a lot of other free ad blockers around here.
By default, Adblock Plus is not designed to block all ads, only those deemed intrusive or potentially malware. That means you’ll still run into some ads unless you fiddle with the settings. If you want to block out all ads (including autoplay video ads), you’ll need to go into options and de-select “Allow some non-intrusive advertising” at the bottom of the screen. Even then, ABP isn’t perfect. It blocked most of the ads I found but was among the many ad blockers that couldn’t seem to deal with any of the ads on Orlando Sentinel. Unfortunately, even ABP’s “block element” feature failed to work on those as well. ABP is good and popular, but far from a perfect solution.
Score: 6.5/7
Best features: Includes anti-adblock filter
Works with: Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, Yandex Browser, iOS, Android
uBlock Plus Adblocker
The biggest drawback to this plugin is that it’s less user-friendly in the forward-facing interface. There are a few setting toggles in the UI, but most of the grunt work needs to be done in the actual settings. That said, uBlock Plus Adblocker effectively stopped all of the ads we tested, including autoplay videos.
Even with most of the settings sitting behind the settings menu, there’s a lot you can do with this blocker. Perhaps one of the biggest draws for uBlock Plus Adblocker is the inclusion of a large library of third-party filters. The plugin also has advanced user settings that allow you to create your own content filters, among other things.
uBlock Plus Adblocker takes care of most ads, but it did struggle with the Orlando Sentinel banner ads that tripped up most every other ad blocker we tested.
Score: 6.5/7
Best features: Large element filtering and malvertising filters
Works with: Chrome
Poper Blocker
A new addition to the pop-up blocking scene, Poper Blocker is available for both Chrome and Firefox web browsers. This plugin has been hailed as the best pop-up blocker on the market by several other tech sites, which is a fair claim, although not necessarily the case from our testing. Poper Blocker is a high-tier option to explore nonetheless as it’s very effective at what it does.
Both the Chrome and Firefox versions of this plugin work well to block not just pop-ups, but website overlays that are exceedingly common as well. This plugin allows you to right-click overlays to remove them, while other types of pop-ups are removed automatically. And, as with other blockers, whitelisting is available, as is the option to report when a pop-up fails to get blocked by the plugin.
Poper Blocker hits most of the criteria we look for in a blocker. It’s completely free to use and doesn’t lock any of its features behind a paywall. There’s no sign-up required, so you don’t have to give over personal information to use it, either. The only thing you may be concerned about is the fact that Poper Blocker collects and uses data anonymized — but you can opt-out of data collection services for even more privacy.
Over 2 million users on Chrome alone have tried Poper Blocker, while over 73,000 of those users joined together to give the plugin a rather hight 4.8 out of 5 stars. The company behind Poper Blocker appears to update the app rather frequently. As of this time of writing, it was last updated in October 2019 (and likely more recently, depending on when you’re reading this article.)
As for the success of its blocking, our own experience was positive, but mixed. Some pop-ups were successfully blocked every time after using the “remove overlay” option. However, we found this did not always block the same pop-ups on some sites. For example, an overlay on Forbes.com returned after refreshing the page. And blocking the overlay made the Forbes front page inoperable. That failure helped lower the score for this option just a bit.
Score: 6/7
Best feature: Overlay blocking
Works with: Chrome and Firefox
AdBlocker Genesis Plus
If you’ve used or are interested in the uBlock Origin or AdBlock Plus style of ad blockers, this plugin may be for you. AdBlocker Genesis Plus is a fork of other popular plugins, meaning it uses the same basic code which alters enough to be a unique program. The UI is slightly different, but the ad blocking functionality is mostly the same. More notably, this ad blocker’s developer says he specifically removed tracking code from the original uBlock/AdBlock Plus code in order to ensure more privacy.
A good number of people have latched onto this ad blocker as well. It boasts a high rating (4.34 out of 5) and over 100,000 users. Although it uses the same code as some of the more popular options, I found Genesis Plus did not block all on-page ads. It blocked simple display ads on one tested site (Fark.com) but failed to block the large display ad on Orlando Sentinel. That ad can be blocked with the “block element” button, however.
Score: 6/7
Best features: Removal of tracking code for more privacy, easy whitelisting button, “block element” button
Works with: Chrome
Trustnav Adblocker
Trustnav is an antivirus company from Andorra that provides a combination adblocker and antivirus Google Chrome plugin. The antivirus solution, which is premium and costs $1.99 per month, is currently unavailable. For now, you can use the solo adblocker plugin for free.
Trustnav also currently has a “Safesearch” Chrome plugin that’s separate from the adblocker. Be sure to install the adblocker version directly from the Chrome.
As far as functionality goes, Trustnav presents a very easy-to-use adblocker with a great user interface. It’s simple and effective at most things. However, the biggest problem you’ll find with this adblocker is that you can’t adjust many settings. Trustnav lets you toggle whether the adblocker is on or off, whether it is blocking all ads or just some ads, and whether you want to get alerts. Beyond that, there’s no fine tuning, no real whitelisting, and no way to view all of your adblocking stats outside of how many ads were blocked on the site you’re visiting at the time.
Positively, it blocks ads like a champion, except for some autoplay video ads. Those seemed to slip right by its filter unabated. Nevertheless, it effectively hits most of the key checkmarks for our ranking system and scores near perfectly on all fronts.
Score: 6/7
Best feature: Simple interface
Works with: Chrome
Adblocker Ultimate
Another open source project, AdBlocker Ultimate is good at removing most ads you might come across. In testing, it was able to dispel ads on YouTube and most display ads on various sites we tested. This ad blocker is also widely used and highly rated. It has a 4.84 out of 5 score from Google Chrome users, and over 600,000 installs.
That said, it still struggled with the Orlando Sentinel display ads alongside most of the other ad blockers we tested. It failed to block any of the ads on that site’s page. Nevertheless, for those looking to block most ads, this is a good option. Unfortunately, this plugin hasn’t been updated in just over a year, so its score gets knocked down a bit further.
Score: 6/7
Best features: Quick “block element” feature to instantly block any ads that get through
Works with: Chrome
NoScript
This Firefox-only ad blocker is not so much an ad blocker, but a script blocker. NoScript prevents all types of scripts from loading on your web pages: Javascript, Java, Flash, and a number of other plugins. You can allow certain types of scripts, but the service takes a bit of a heavy hand by default.
The result is that you’ll block most display ads you come across. This included the aggressive Orlando Sentinel ads that most of the other options on our list struggled to block. However, NoScript does not block ads on videos at all, nor does it block most autoplay video ads. This makes it very good at blocking one type of ad, but poor at blocking others.
Score: 5.5/7
Best feature: Complete script blocking
Works with: Firefox
AdGuard
To its credit, AdGuard does exactly what you want it to do. You can block all of the types of advertisements that we tested, which is positive. However, the biggest downside to this ad blocker is that it has a premium version. Unfortunately, AdGuard used to offer both a free and paid version, but that’s no longer the case. Instead, you’ll get a 14-day free trial, which then blocks you out of their services afterward.
That aside, the service provides a wide range of options and works well—but you may be disappointed with having to pay later.
Beyond that, users love AdGuard. It has over 4 million downloads on Chrome with a high rating to match, making the free version a worthwhile option. And in our testing, this was one of the only ad blockers that not only effectively blocked the ads on Orlando Sentinel but even blocked the advertisement frames with the word “advertisement” that most others still allowed to load.
Score: 5/7
Best features: “Inverted whitelisting” (change whitelist to blacklist), block self-promotion ads (sometimes doesn’t work)
Works with: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Microsoft Edge, Yandex.Opera
Why are Privacy Badger and Ghostery missing?
You may have heard of the popular ad blockers Privacy Badger and Ghostery. While we like and respect these two ad blockers, neither met our criteria based on how they function. Neither of these plugins is designed to block ads, specifically, but to deny website ads and other website elements that betray user privacy. As a result, both will block some ads some of the time but are primarily focused on privacy instead of complete security online.
That means you won’t get the kind of ad-blocking you might want from either of these plugins. Additionally, they don’t allow you much control over the type of ads they block, given their desire is to allow good ads to pass through and not block all ads wholesale.
Google Chrome Ad Blocker
Despite its bit of scaremongering, Google’s built-in ad blocker does not seem to do much. After putting it through the same tests as the other ad blockers listed above, it allowed every ad through that we could find. The built-in ad blocker is also very limited. Even finding a website where ads were blocked was difficult. And since the Chrome ad blocker is designed to only block certain types of ads, most ads you’ll find are not blocked, especially if they are ads sourced through Google’s own advertising wing.
It almost goes without saying, but Google’s ad blocker is somewhat of a joke. It might have forced some websites to clean up their act a little bit with more intentionally intrusive advertisements, but you really won’t be able to use to block ads.
A note on ad blockers and website revenue
Advertisements come in many flavors, from pop-up ads to on-page advertisements and more. Some websites have even started throwing up a separate page for their ads (such as Forbes) or using autoplay video ads as soon as the page loads.
In general, consumers hate ads for a variety of reasons, including:
- They can slow down page loading
- Many are now intrusive and annoying
- They can use up precious data for those with data-limited internet plans
- The ads are often irrelevant to user interests
- The ads may interrupt the browsing or viewing experience (particularly ads on video streaming sites like Hulu or Crunchyroll)
- Many ads contain tracking cookies that send user behavior back to third parties
The quality of ads has gotten so bad that even Google includes an ad blocker in its Chrome browser now, targeting “substandard ads.” Google’s intentions might be a bit suspect, however, as the company operates a large advertisement wing of its own and likely doesn’t block any Google-sourced ads from AdSense.
Still, thanks to ads, we can enjoy most of the content we watch and read online for free, but ads do have various drawbacks. They can also serve as a vector for computer viruses or third-party hacks.
Before you dive into blocking ads on your favorite websites, we’d like to point out that those websites you’re using often rely on ad revenue to survive. While many websites are now diversifying their revenue streams (often because of increased ad blocker usage), ad revenue is still a major source of income for many websites. The use of ad blockers resulted in an estimated loss of $15.8 billion for websites in recent years.
If you like the services you receive from certain websites that you trust, we suggest you whitelist those sites in your ad blocker’s settings. Whitelisting is the opposite of blacklisting. Instead of telling your ad blocker to block certain sites, you’re telling it that the list of sites are ones you don’t want to block.
Whitelisting is a good way to help guarantee the sites you like and trust continue to get the ad revenue they need. Even if you never click on the advertisements, many sites get some revenue by page views, making it still beneficial for those websites if you to allow their ads to show.
Google’s ad blocker purge
In early summer 2018, Google purged dozens of ad blockers from its Chrome Store. The reason? Many of those ad blockers were themselves malicious, feeding user data into botnets and allowing whoever was on the other end to gain control. A few very popular, widely-downloaded, and highly-praised ad blockers were caught up in the mix as well, including SuperBlock and AdRemover for Google Chrome.
Over 20 million users installed the suspect ad blockers, many of which simply cloned legitimate code from other, official ad blockers. Some used very similar names as well.
If you downloaded one of the malicious ad blockers, Google’s purge would have disabled the ad blocker from working on your Chrome browser.
As far as we can tell, the only ad blockers left on the Google Chrome Store are fully legitimate. All of the Chrome plugin options that are currently on our list passed Google’s vetting process. However, be sure to double check the history and safety of any developer whose program you choose to install as a plugin on your browser.
I used AdBlock Plus, which wasn’t bad, but once you blocked something, you couldn’t unblock just that one thing. Missing from your evaluation was the ability to customize the tool. I suppose Adblock Plus can be customized by altering the source code, but it should be easier than that.
Good and useful observation. We’ll take that aspect into consideration when we slate this one for an update. We like to keep these updated several times a year as the environment and products change frequently. I’d mark that up to a usability issue, certainly, which we may place as a new rating criteria.
I am running Windows 10 and would like to know which add blocker to use thats free like OPERA on my laptop computer. I currently have Windows 20 / Firefox / loaded as search engines. Is OPERA another search engine? Tired of so many adds popping up. Thanks for your time.
Privacy Badger….
Hi PPatrick!
WE actually mentioned Privacy Badger and Ghostery at the end of the article, to explain why we didn’t include them in the list. You can find it using the table of contents on the page, but we stated the following:
“You may have heard of the popular ad blockers Privacy Badger and Ghostery. While we like and respect these two ad blockers, neither met our criteria based on how they function. Neither of these plugins is designed to block ads, specifically, but to deny website ads and other website elements that betray user privacy. As a result, both will block some ads some of the time but are primarily focused on privacy instead of complete security online.”
The proliferation of internet advertising has turned the promise of the “information superhighway” into the reality of the marketing mudpath. I have used AdBlock Plus with Firefox for many years and find it simple and reliable, i just wish it could be made “stealthy” so sites could not detect its use. Am considering trying ublock as I’ve read it can also block those irritating “sign up for our newsletter” or “like us on Farcebook” popups that virtually prevent you from reading what you visited the site for (and also allegedly will remove those heinous “sign up or login to continue” blocks in pinterest and instagram). I’ve been using the Brave browser, with built in ad blocking and tracker blocking, for several months now; it seems to work at least as well as AdBlock but wonder if you’ve tested/compared it.
Hi jgj!
I definitely second your use of Brave Browser. Highly reputable, highly effective.
I need help. Firstly, I’m 81-year-old. Not savvy about “blockers”… I’m using a new computer; my old one was about 10-15 years old and I loved it.. but, it began to have problems… my son bought me this new-fangled item, in which I feel like Alice… in Wonderland. Ad-blockers … new word for me… but, I kinda get the picture why they can be necessary. BUT, which can I trust and eventually buy. My messages on this new ‘puter tells me I’ve two days before my trial expires.
Any and all advise is appreciated.
Sorry! Sam Cook—not Tom Cook!
Hi Thelma,
I agree with Tom Cook that AdGuard and AdBlock Plus are two choices, but one word of warning on AdGuard’s Technical Support: it’s Bad! I have used the free version of AdGuard for a few years, and even though it blocks a lot of ads for my iPhones, I still have problems with some pop up banners, and the most annoying ad to me is the auto play videos that prevent me from watching the weather related news before I finish watching these videos!
I asked AdGuard for help, with these issues and the issue with email junks from certain sites with a suffix of @conservazon.net. At first, it asked me to do this and that, replied to me a few times, and the completely ignored my existing issues! To me, such attitude is totally Unprofessional And it implies AdGuard is too money-driven to care much of its consumers, unless you PAY! If you use the free version, you are nothing but by passers! They seem to forget that the first impression is important, and a lot of the by passers using the free version are their future subscribers!
AdGuard (free version) also excludes important features like “Security” and “Custom” unless you opt for the paid version!
I used AdBlock Plus before on my PC, and my wife has been using it for her iPhone. Now I come back to add AdBlock Plus to my iPhone to eliminate the ads that AdGuard fails to block as mentioned above.
Just install Adblocker Plus and uBlock Origin, which are free. You should never pay for something you can get for free.
I find with these tend to work unless you run into the occasional website that flags you and demands that you unblock them.
Hi Thelma!
If you’re looking for something good and reliable, AdGuard or AdBlock Plus (mentioned higher up in the article) are probably safe bets.
Hey Sam,I hope you know something I don’t. Ad Guard was highly recommended to me. I specifically downloaded “Free Ad Guard for Windows 10” and was very pleased with the results,but I eventually got a pop-up informing me that my trial period had expired. At the suggestion of an Ad Guard tech,I uninstalled what I had.Then I downloaded the Firefox extender,I use the Firefox browser,and again downloaded the “Free Ad Guard for Windows 10”.I got perhaps two weeks of very good Ad Guard service before I once again received the pop-up notice informing me that my trial period expired yesterday,Dec.6th ’19. Does Ad Guard really offer a permanent “free version” or only free trial periods before requiring a purchase?
Hi Mark!
Thanks for chiming in here. This is a post we regularly update (and we just did an update this week to remove some blockers that don’t work anymore and add a new one). It appears since we first added Adblock to the list, they got rid of their free version! That’s probably the discrepancy. Their website contains some language still about free versions, but that’s clearly not the case anymore since it’s now a 2-week free trial instead of a free and premium option.
Thanks Sam,I guess I will scan your list for what seems best for me.Thanks for your reply
Ads should be illegal
I thought AdLock or AdGuard were always free. After a month or so they refuse to work unless I pay. That seems unfair. Isn’t there an always-free ad blocker for MS Edge?
Adlock is only free forever if you use for as a Chrome extension. Same with AdGuard. If you want to use them both outside of an extension, you’ll need to purchase them.
Edge does have a built-in ad blocker, but as with the other built-in ad-blockers, it’s only marginally effective. Edge’s is better than Chrome’s, I will say, and I think Google is not nearly as incentivized to help block ads given Adsense is a big part of its revenue generation.
Hi there,
Just FYI, after discovering today that my Safari pages are suddenly riddled with ads and that my old ad blocker has apparently disappeared from my computer, I went looking for new ad blocking reviews and found your excellent article. (Thank you!) I then opened another page that I had tabbed but hadn’t looked at until after I’d seen yours and instantly realized that it had been “borrowed” in full and verbatim from your article (only omitting the intro paragraph on the Comparitech page) but without attribution. It was dated the day after yours was. Maybe they had your permission – or maybe you borrowed from them, or both of you from elsewhere? – but if not see
sritutorials. com/ 10-best-free-ad-blockers-to-remove-ads-popups-for-2019/
Sorry for the bother if you already know this,
Jen
(Please make sure my email address does NOT end up on a mailing list, after any one-off reply you may care to send if you do that.)
Thanks a lot for bringing this to our attention Jen! We’re going to look into this. This kind of thing is not uncommon, but getting it taken down can be a headache sometimes. To note, our piece is actually much older than a few months and we keep it regularly updated with relevant info.
(And don’t worry — we don’t put commenters on mailing lists!)
i LOVED Incognito Adblocker, but seems the link is dead on Firefox’s addon search. Did something happen to it? It was everything I wanted, giving me the right to ok certain pictures or web site elements as desired so sorted like starting with a blank page and only allowing in the real things you want to read and see. Kinda reverse of blocking an element. I’ve found that far less labor intensive and I get EXACTLY the content I want.
And yes … I white list my most traveled to sites. :-}
if anyone finds a legit link for Incognito Adblocker, please please please let me know? I saw on the comments when i got it for my other laptop that someone was accusing him of ripping off an original other adblocker, but honestly? the interface ROCKS. So simply to understand without taking away every tool you’d want – including ultra privacy. Yummmmm
tari ~~~ TYTYTY
Hi Tari,
The website shows this one is still available.
https://www.incognitoadblocker.com/
If you click on the link to go to the chrome store it ends up being a 404 error link and cannot find the app at the google chrome store.
Hi D!
Can you point me to which one was giving you a 404? I tried all of the Chrome Store links and I didn’t get 404s through any of them, but I’m keen to fix any of the links if there’s a broken one.
does anyone know of a chrome os blocking software comparable to adguard pro for ios? adblock plus is the best ive found and it is lacking in user capability significantly. any direction appreciated
I have been looking for a better ad blocker and trying different ones because what I consider to be “acceptable” ads and what Google, Mozilla, etc. consider to be “acceptable” are usually very different. And some of the ad blockers are hard to work around with my Ebates addon and Trend Micro Subscription addons.
Thanks for all of the helpful info here!! I appreciate it!!
In case you want to update the info, AdBlock/AdBlocker Ultimate for Chrome was updated on October 25, 2018. And it was just updated for Firefox today, December 25, 2018. Merry Christmas to All!!
Does anyone know what happened to Fair Adblocker by Stands? It’s not working anymore and it’s not on Google Web Store.
Hi Ash,
As far as I can tell, this one still exists:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fair-adblocker/lgblnfidahcdcjddiepkckcfdhpknnjh?hl=en-US
I have it, just installed it, do a search as I did ?
For me it’s fire money to buy an adblocker. I’m using Trustnav Adblocker because it’s free and unlimited, in the other side it’s very simple and not very intrusive when you’re on the net. I’ve tested others but just the trial version.
did ad blocker work.
Thanks for the comment, Carol! Trustnav is a solid ad blocker, good choice!
Using Ad Blocker extension in Chrome, having difficulty opening some files, mails, Pinterest etc., I turned Ad Blocker off, seems to be much better now.
Hi Ron,
Some ad blockers will block suspicious links and different windows that popup that may share commonalities with the code used for ads. Your best options are either to whitelist some of the sites you don’t want that blocking to occur, or try a different ad blocker if the one you’re using is too aggressive.
Is it possible to test these on sites like Kissanime where you get banned if they find you have an ad-blocker on your comp? There are a lot of people that get so fed-up with this. Even if you have it switched off, you still get banned.
Hi Theresa,
I don’t personally use Kissanime or similar sites, but I took a look at it. From what I can tell, you don’t need to create an account or login to Kissanime or sites like it. I’d definitely recommend not signing up for these sites as they aren’t particularly trustworthy with user information.
Assuming they can still block and ban people who aren’t logged into the site for using adblockers, my guess is they’re simply identifying users by their IP address. If that’s the case, I recommend signing up to and using a VPN when connected to their site.
does these ad blocker work and not open up more ads on your computer screen
Hi Will,
These pop-up blockers passed out test regarding that. None of them should open more ads.
Is there an extension to block floating videos in Chrome?
Hi Ziggy! This Chrome extension might help:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/turn-off-the-lights/bfbmjmiodbnnpllbbbfblcplfjjepjdn
the new one Smartadblock is a killer
-kills cookie notifications
-undetected
-kills popups on streaming websites
Trustnav is an antivirus company from Andorra that provides a combination adblocker and antivirus Google Chrome plugin. The antivirus solution, which is premium and costs $1.99 per month, is currently unavailable. For now, you can use the solo adblocker plugin for free.
Trustnav also currently has a “Safesearch” Chrome and Firefox plugin that’s separate from the adblocker. Be sure to install the adblocker version directly from the Chrome or Firefox.
As far as functionality goes, Trustnav presents a very easy-to-use adblocker with a great user interface. It’s simple and effective at most things. However, the biggest problem you’ll find with this adblocker is that you can’t adjust many settings.
It’s really interesting and useful adblockers but I’ve already tried the most of this and did not find one which can block every ads! Now, I’m using AdLock and you know I think it’s the best adbloker because I’ve not had any ads)) I recommend it!
I’m using it adlock.com It’s not bad
Thanks for the recommendation! We actually plan to update this piece in the near future as there are some great new options on the market.
adblocker ultimate is the best
Tried Trustnav and works very effectively also on popups, this was a surprise because the other adblockers I tried did not block popups..
Thanks for your article
Which adblockers don’t slow your computer down?
Hi Sev!
All of the options mentioned above are very resource lite, especially the ones that are browser extensions. If anything, your browser by itself is going to be pretty resource intensive on an older machine, and if you have a lot of windows open or multiple sessions of the same browser open, your computer could easily slow down. Chrome is a known resource hog, especially, so I would recommend an adblocker running on either Opera or Firefox.
I installed AdGuard AdBlocker and it is not free, it is trial version that expires unless you subscribe and pay a fee.
Thanks for letting me know! I’ll take another look at that one.
This list is outdated already. Much better ad blockers came out this year check Incognito Adblocker for firefox, it’s really good
Apps keep changing so fast! I’ll take a look at that one and update our list appropriately if it meets the criteria. Thanks!
Where is Popup Blocker Ultimate for firefox?
I will try Stand Fair , AdGuard AdBlocker and take a look at Ad Blocker Plus
just for my own test experience.
Thanks , this is a real world need ! ads are making the web unpleasant,even
though we will still use it out of habit and convenience.
Agee